Opinion: How Obama’s stimulus bill caused an opera to break out in Oklahoma

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You know how those operas always have big parties in the town square with happy people singing and swinging fake beer mugs around while they stroll all over and the baritone mayor is unhappy because his soprano daughter won’t agree to an arranged marriage to the penurious prince because she loves a handsome though poor donkey farmer in another town and, in anger, the father naturally stabs a bunch of grapevines with his sword, not knowing his daughter is hiding in there for some reason, causing her to stumble out and take a long song to die, turning the father inconsolable just as the poor donkey farmer arrives to vow eternal revenge but the mayor’s plus-size wife announces she’ll drink poison if the men don’t make up, so they do?

So it’s all a good thing and the party in the square continues for everyone except the dead girl, who returns as an angel in Act III.

Well, it turns out our singing pals over on the must-read Culture Monster blog here have uncovered a similar operatic tale, only this one is true.

And it’s tied into today’s Senate passage of the president’s absolutely essential economic stimulus or wildly profligate spending bill.

The father in this story is played by Sen. Tom Coburn, a really conservative doctor from Oklahoma, and his real-life daughter is played by his real-life daughter, Sarah Coburn, a real-life soprano who’ll sing in L.A. this fall with Placido Domingo, which is a big deal.

But now you have to find out the big ending by clicking here. (Don’t worry, it’s all in English).

-- Andrew Malcolm

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